Re: player development. I suggested in another thread that one thing about the game that becomes readily obvious in a short while is the predictability of the talent, where it comes from, and how it plays out. I observed that in this game there seems to be no possibility at all for the existence of a Bautista or an R.A. Dickey, and likewise very little chance of a player having a "career season" like a Brady Anderson.

A veteran player sitemailed me with an explanation that in the early days of HBD there used to be more randomness in how players performed. But, he said, many owners didn't like it, and complained, and the model was changed to accomodate them.

This inquisition regarding "What's Stale About HBD?" sort of brings this thread full circle.

One aspect of HBD that is definitely stale is the world openings page. Several of the worlds listed on that page right now are so stale they are turning to dust.

The Godfather of HBD, MikeT23, has convinced many of us that HBD doesn't have a supply/demand imbalance, that it would be logistically impossible for WIS to merge worlds, that the large number of worlds sitting idle is purely a seasonal phenomenon, that the large number of worlds sitting idle is solely due to the fact that they are bad worlds, unblessed with a commissioner as gifted in commissionering as he, and so on.

The Godfather may be correct. He often is. But that doesn't make the world openings page any less stale. One freshening I'd like to see is for WIS to address this issue in some manner. My suggestion is that HBD show good faith on the issue by simply merging one world - one with many openings that has been sitting idle for many weeks and months - with one other similarly situated world. Give it a try. See what happens. Anything is better than the near death experience presently going on on the world openings page.

They will not do it unless the owners of said worlds agree. Most will not, because they enjoy dominating their tard world, and will fight tooth and nail to not merge with other tard world super teams.

I thought willsuave had a great idea in another thread discussing merging. He suggested something like merging the top third of three tard worlds into one world, the middle of the pack teams from all three into another and finally the dreck into the third.

Again, this would have to be agreed upon by the owners because if WIS FORCED a merger they are likely to alienate the owners that are left in those worlds and are actually paying for the product.

And tom, it isn't that these worlds aren't blessed blah blah blah, it is uncaring membership. I took on a team as a replacement for an abandoned team during ST. One owner was blatantly sabotaging his team, and is now 4-40, and yet still in the world. Another owner has neglected most of his minors and when asked to address this problem said "i promoted and bought some minor league FAs, got no money left, im not going to sacrifice a bench player at Ml or a backup for september just for more minor league scrubs".

I would also echo the sentiments of many when they say read the world chat, look at the history and avoid leagues where the same teams are winning 110 plus each season, and the AS squad is consistently having 6-7 players from the same 3 or 4 teams.

These are the kind of worlds that, although private, are poor quality worlds.

One aspect of HBD that is definitely stale is the world openings page. Several of the worlds listed on that page right now are so stale they are turning to dust.

The Godfather of HBD, MikeT23, has convinced many of us that HBD doesn't have a supply/demand imbalance, that it would be logistically impossible for WIS to merge worlds, that the large number of worlds sitting idle is purely a seasonal phenomenon, that the large number of worlds sitting idle is solely due to the fact that they are bad worlds, unblessed with a commissioner as gifted in commissionering as he, and so on.

The Godfather may be correct. He often is. But that doesn't make the world openings page any less stale. One freshening I'd like to see is for WIS to address this issue in some manner. My suggestion is that HBD show good faith on the issue by simply merging one world - one with many openings that has been sitting idle for many weeks and months - with one other similarly situated world. Give it a try. See what happens. Anything is better than the near death experience presently going on on the world openings page.

Aside from the larger issues, I don't really think the page is as stale as you think it is. Maybe the list isn't getting any shorter, but that's because new worlds are opening up as others fill. Based on days remaining in the season, it looks like 10 worlds have filled and started in the last week, with 2 others that currently have 0 openings and just need their commissioners to press the button. There are only a handful of worlds with more than 5-6 openings, and it didn't look like any of them had rolled more than two weeks ago. So, there are currently no worlds that meet your criteria. It would have to be a merge of 3-4 words into 2-3 - which means breaking up groups of 20+ owners who have a history in their worlds.

As I said before, WIS has and can merge when 2 leagues have enough openings to do it and sign off. I believe the one time they did it, they had a whole bunch of openings the next season again, but I can't prove that.

To bring this home a bit, I'm somewhat skeptical that you would be so excited about this idea if WIS came to your world and said you'd be part of a merger - and not by breaking up another world to fill your 4 spots, but by breaking up yours to fill others.

Posted by MikeT23 on 9/11/2012 2:55:00 PM (view original):tom's problem is that HIS world hasn't filled. That's pretty much the reason for the creation, and continuance, of this thread. He's not interested in the other 10 that rolled this week.

Posted by damag on 9/11/2012 1:58:00 PM (view original):Re: player development. I suggested in another thread that one thing about the game that becomes readily obvious in a short while is the predictability of the talent, where it comes from, and how it plays out. I observed that in this game there seems to be no possibility at all for the existence of a Bautista or an R.A. Dickey, and likewise very little chance of a player having a "career season" like a Brady Anderson.

A veteran player sitemailed me with an explanation that in the early days of HBD there used to be more randomness in how players performed. But, he said, many owners didn't like it, and complained, and the model was changed to accomodate them.

There is still plenty of randomness about how player's perform. The thing most aren't interested in is a game of complete chance. There's no reason for you to spend two hours ranking prospects if there's just as good of chance that your pick at 12 will be the same player as the guy drafted at 379.

I don't maintain reams and reams of HBD spread sheets like The Godfather. I'm more of a wing it kind of a guy. So I'm never going to be able to refute The Godfather and his acolytes when he makes his outlandish arithmetical claims about how 20 worlds have filled since the world I'm in rolled over, how WIS can't possiblely merge 170 HBD worlds in the spring into 120 worlds in the fall, or merge two long idle worlds into one, and other such claims that he often makes in his neverending war against strawmen.

The Godfather is well practiced and adept at snowing us with numbers. To be fair, often his numbers, his calculations, and the deductions and inferences he makes from them, are useful and help to enlighten many of us on the nuances of HBD. I am grateful for the contributions The Godfather has made to my enjoyment of HBD.

But oftentimes The Godfather gets lazy. Oftentimes, when he thinks some cub is not showing sufficient respect for his position as HBD Godfather, he'll just start throwing numbers and combinations and permutations of numbers to "prove" said an idiot, a jerk, and a threat to the peace and prosperity of this our scared birthright, this game, this blessed game, His game - HBD.

He did it just now. He threw out a bunch of numbers regarding worlds filled while my world (More Cowbell) sat idle to "prove" - arithmetically, scientifically, and positively - that I am selfish, I am dishonorable, that I am a liar, that I am unworhty to play HBD, nor post in its forums (and that, also, More Cowbell is a crap world).

I am tired of Godfather Mike's defamations and libels. I am tired of his hubris, his belief that he is Chief HBD Doorkeeper and his kneejerk assumptions that if anyone disagrees with him they can't possiblely have HBD's best interests at heart and must be acting out of selfish, unmanly motives. I am also tired of his sophomoric statistical techniques and the disingenuous conclusions he draws from them - but that's a different story.

World More Cowbell rolled over 17 days ago with six openings. It presently has four openings. It will fill one of these days; particularly after it gets down to one or two openings. Things usually break pretty quickly after that.

More Cowbell is not a bad world. Plenty of long term, committed owners, an ernest commissioner, tight pennant races, a frequently amusing chat box, an average turnover rate. All in all a pleasant place to kill time, a fun experience. That is to say, More Cowbell is about like most HBD worlds - it's a nice game. Not a highflying, cutthroat, "elite" game like the ones The Godfather commissioners, but a nice game.

MikeT23 is just wrong to state catagorically - using specious numerical "proofs" - that More Cowbell is out of the ordinary, that it is a bad, outlier on Mike's normal curve and that it is soley my selfish embitterment at being stranded in this bad, corrupted world that motivated me to start this thread.

Almost all of us have been stuck in a "stale" world like More Cowbell from time to time. It is routine - not a statistical outlier. The whole thrust of this thread was to spur discussion of WIS's longstanding indifference and silence regarding the "stale" HBD world openings page. MikeT23 is out of line in using his habitual bluster, pseudo statistical arguement, and snide satire to stifle honest, concerned discussion of a legitimate shortcoming in WIS's management of HBD and CS. MikeT23 is doubly wrong to impune my honesty and my honor by stating that my purpose in starting this thread was a selfish one. His aroggance, browbeating and vanity have gone over the line this time.

I hope someone condenses that for me. Nonetheless, one does not need a spreadsheet. Common sense and practical application will work. Despite NOT being the user who claimed 10 rolled in the last week, I'll show you how it it figured out. Go to World Center, join world. Sort by Days Remaining. Copy/Paste.

Umm, I was the one who gave the numbers of worlds that filled in the last week and then since your world opened, Mike just parrotted one of them. And I did exactly as he just described to figure it out.

I'm not impuning your honor, I'm just refuting what I believe is your overstatement of the problem. I don't think More Cowball is a "bad" world, I have no idea, it just happens to be taking longer to fill than some others this time. I'm also explaining why I think merging worlds is a bad idea - and why I think you would think it was a bad idea if it was forced on your world and it had to break up.

If there were two worlds with 16+ openings that could be merged into one like has happened in the past, I'd be all for it. I don't think there's any way to start merging 3+ worlds into fewer worlds that won't run off a bunch of additional teams in the process.

Posted by MikeT23 on 9/11/2012 4:47:00 PM (view original):For the record, I don't care if WifS takes one team from 32 open worlds and forms a new, merged world. I just don't think that addresses any problems that won't occur again next fall.

Exactly!

EVERY fall this happens.
It does suck when YOUR world rolls at the beginning of football season.

As mentioned before, Schmidt has rolled & ABU is down to 4 spots. Those are two of the biggest tard worlds in all HBD. If they can add owners in the fall, certainly More Cowbell will fill.

As I stated at the beginning of my anti-Godfather manifesto, I am not the man to refute every last niggling numeric proof of His Godfathership's HBD infalibilty. I do not dispute the correctness of any of the numbers presented as proof that there is no turover problem in HBD. I merely state that your numbers describe trees but misrepresent the forest. The Godfather, busy as he is issuing decrees, encyclicals. indulgences, and bulls,, hasn't the time to read my manifesto. He has asked someone to edit it down for him. I will do it.

There are but two (2) essential points to the Anti-Godfather Manifesto:

1. Killing the messenger does not invalidate the message. The offseason deadtime in HBD has been complained about by many, many HBDers for a long, long time. At one time the hew and cry became so loud that WIS responded to it, more or less acknowledged that the slow turnover was, in fact, a bit of a blip in their customers' satisfaction and that WIS was considering merging some world(s) to make said blip go away. All of the Godfather's stats and bluster can not make this bit of HBD history go away. The stale world openings page is not a seasonal aberration. It is an ongoing, continuous shortcoming of the game that is continuously complained about by WIS's customers. WIS's silence and refusual to address their customers' concerns is also continuous and ongoing. WIS's unresponsiveness on this issue has caused some customers to quit the game - or so they stated in these forums. Godfather Mike's denials and numeric proofs that any of this history actually happened - and that those who say it did happen are selfish, solipstical neurotics - is also continuous and ongoing. However, though most of us are cowed by the Godfather and his acolytes and by the all around awsomeness of their stats and spreedsheets - and are therfore shy about disagreeing with said awsomeness, in this instance, in the matter of the stale world openings page, His Godfathership is in denial. But history is history and history will out.

2. Our Most Serene Godfather, from time to time, must appear politic, must show himself to be a Man of the People. Thus, from time to time, he must disparage himself, humble himself before the masses. He did that here, in this very thread, started by a Fool. He referred to himself as a jerk. ("Jerks like me." See above.) At its core my manifesto is merely agreeing with The Godfather, seconding The Godfather's motion. Yes, The Godfather is a jerk.